Tail fluke in the background, dorsal fin of another whale in the foreground

Although as usual asinger was just outside the pass this morning, the song this individual was singing was far from “usual”. This song did not contain any of the themes we have been hearing around this island or at Raivavae. It was completely different. We decided it was important to follow this whale to collect a biopsy and fluke photo to identify the individual and to determine its genetic provenancein case those data might give us some insight into why this song was different. After a few photographs we realized we already had a biopsy and fluke identification of this whale. We had indeed encountered this whale 3 days ago on this very coast. So we left the whale to circumnavigate the island in search of new whales. We found no whales (but did observe three sea turtles) on the south shore of the island. Our true reward, however, was finding a humpback whale mother and calf pair resting off the southeast corner of the island. But yet again, a few photographs informed us that this was the same mother and calf we had encountered two days earlier, accompanied by escorts (no wonder they needed to rest!) So we left them and headed up the east coast. Then while heading back to the north shore and just outside the pass, we encountered two adult whales. One we had seen previously, but the other was a new whale. We were able to collect a biopsy and some fluke identification photos from this new individual before returning into the pass just as the sun was going down. In the foreground of this already amazing sight, a whale was continuously breaching in the air (we counted 22 before we pulled into the marina!)

Our last day of surveys at Tubuai was business as usual; again a strong singer was just outside the pass. We recorded a complete cycle of song, a nd photo graphically recognized the singer from the day before, so left it in search of other whales. Throughout the day we encountered a mother/calf pair we hadn’t previously seen, and later encountered three whales, all of which we did know.

Over the 4 days of boat surveys at Raivavae and 7 days at Tubuai, we have identified 15 new individual whales, three of which are calves. We collected skin samples from all but 3 of the adults and 1 of the calves.